Roger Federer: The King of Tennis

Joshua Hu, 8th Grader || 10.16.18

Roger Federer is considered the most elusive and efficient tennis machine of this era. In the past elongated 14 years Roger Federer has won a total of 17 grand slams, a feat that no heroic tennis player has been able to accomplish and attained world no.1 ranking for 4 straight years (2004-2008). What makes this man so remarkable, and how has he impacted the world of Tennis in a way that extends way beyond the sport.

Roger Federer was born on August 8, 1981 Basel, Switzerland to Robert Federer and Lynette Durand. At the age of 8, Roger took a spark of interest in Tennis and soccer (European football).

The young Roger excelled at athletics and by the age of 11, he was one of the top 3 junior tennis players in Switzerland. By the age of 12, Roger sensibly pushed away his soccer career onto the side and refracted all his attention and incentives as well as motives into Tennis, which he felt like he could victoriously conquer. By the age of 14, Roger was playing 2-3 Satellite Tournaments per month and practiced for 6 hours of tennis and 3 hours of conditioning per week.

At the age of 14, Roger Federer was invited to play at the Swiss National Tennis center in Ecublens and had his first sponsorship at the age of 18. He also won the junior Wimbledon title and the Orange Bowl title and was recognized as the ITF world junior tennis champion of the year. In 1998, Federer conquered the boys’ singles and doubles titles and later that year, became “pro”, but at the 2001 Wimbledon quarter final he beat Pete Sampras (11 time grand slam champion) which caused a sensation to everyone and later came to win the Wimbledon finals to become the first Swiss man to steal a grand slam final.

In the beginning of 2004, Federer was ranked world no. 2 and attained the Australian Open, the U.S. Open, the ATP world Masters, and retained the Wimbledon title. He later held on to the World no.1 ranking later that year from 2004-2008 and won the Australian Open, his 4th successive Wimbledon, and his 3rd successive U.S. Open, this proved to be a very difficult achievement considering the players Federer had to face like current no.1 Novak Djokovic and world no.1 clay player Rafael Nadal who is considered Rogers most challenging rival to beat.

Although Federer has been unable to win a single grand slam so far this year, many tennis fanatics believe he still may have a good chance at winning the Wimbledon 2013 championship before he retires at the age of 31. Roger has really proven to the people that he is the most elusive, determined, and skilled tennis perfectionist of our era.